Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Poll won’t Affect Ties with India

Kanwal SibalMember Advisory Board, VIF

The upcoming presidential election in the United States lacks the
excitement of the election four years ago when Barack Obama made history
by being the first black person ever to occupy the White House. He
cannot make that kind of history again. The issues he is grappling with
in this election are humdrum ones of a sluggish economy and
job-creation. They concern the lives of ordinary Americans but have no
other extraordinary significance.

The challenger, Mitt Romney, is not an electrifying candidate either.
On the contrary, his campaign has been judged as amongst the worst ever
by a Republican nominee. To many he is not a credible candidate in
terms of clarity and consistency of views and convictions. The domestic
focus of the election also reduces the level of outside interest in
countries that are not US allies.

Thinking

Whether Obama or Romney wins is not too material for India-US
relations because of the level of maturity and stability they have
reached in the last few years. Political and economic attitudes on both
sides have been transformed, with a visible desire to work together in
mutual interest. The claim that bi-partisan political support now exists
in the US for closer ties with India is well-based. The electoral
platform of both parties is positive about India, with the Democrats
affirming that the US “will continue to invest in a long-term strategic
partnership with India’ and the Republicans calling India a “
geopolitical ally and a strategic trading partner”.

India has grown out of the simplistic traditional thinking that
Democrats are more friendly towards India than Republicans. If Kennedy
was more understanding of India, Carter was much less so and Clinton’s
positions on nuclear matters, Kashmir, human rights issues etc were
highly negative for us, a reality his successful visit to India towards
the end of his second tenure should not obscure. On the other hand, if
Nixon’s attitude towards India was unspeakable, Bush was responsible for
transforming US ties with India. In reality, Democrats and Republicans
will do what they think is best for the US in given circumstances.

We know, of course, where we stand with Barack Obama, whereas Mitt
Romney is an unknown quantity. But familiarity with one and the absence
of it with the other is not important beyond a point as US policies
emerge and evolve from an intensive internal inter-departmental process
that has maximization of national interest as objective. Obama’s views
were not initially too congenial for us on several issues, but they
evolved more favourably for us in the course of his presidency. After
election he publicly mulled over nominating Clinton as US Special Envoy
on Kashmir. He believed that to obtain Pakistan’s support for the US in
Afghanistan it was necessary to press India to make concessions to
Pakistan on Kashmir. He was opposed to any prominent role for India in
Afghanistan. He alienated the most pro-US section of the Indian
entrepreneurial class by his position on outsourcing. But recognizing
altered realities, his discourse on Pakistan, India’s role in
Afghanistan, on Kashmir etc has changed in our favour, though on
outsourcing he continues to play politics.

The Obama Administration is helping India strengthen its capacities
to manage internal security, which the new Administration will also do.
It has designated LeT and the Haqqani group as terrorist organizations,
and declared a bounty on Hafiz Saeed. But then the US has to manage the
political and military transition in Afghanistan for which they need a
minimum of Pakistani cooperation, including access to supply routes.
These realities will weigh with whoever wins the election.

Candidates

The US as a whole, though, is now deeply disenchanted with the
vagaries of Pakistan’s policies towards terrorism and Afghanistan.
Romney undoubtedly shares the general American disillusionment with
Pakistan’s conduct. If Obama loses and Romney wins one can hardly see
the US overcoming its distrust of Pakistan.

On Kashmir, Romney can be expected to pursue Obama’s present neutral
line of leaving it to India and Pakistan to settle the issue
bilaterally. The US is not yet ready to give India the kind of comfort
in Kashmir that should logically flow from its own experience of
Pakistan’s toxic policies in its immediate neighbourhood driven by
military ambition and religious radicalism. However, on the whole, we
will have less issues with US policy towards Pakistan whatever the
outcome of the next election.

Romney is particularly tough on China. If the Democrats under Obama
consider India a lynchpin in the US pivot towards Asia, the Republicans
under Romney will hardly think otherwise.

Issues

Whether one candidate or the other wins, India and the US will have
to contend with some irritants and unmet expectations. For India, easier
export controls and high/dual use technology transfers, additional
costs imposed on the Indian IT industry by hikes in H1B and L1 visa
fees, outsourcing issues etc will remain on the agenda. US concerns
about our nuclear liability law and stalling of economic reforms will
continue even though the government has allowed FDI in multi-brand
retail and raised its ceiling in the insurance and pension sectors.
Despite our bilateral trade reaching $100 billion, with a significant
spurt in US exports, the US will continue to press for more market
openings. Growing US defence sales to India is a strategic advance
denoting growing mutual trust, but the US will expect more in this area.
With job creation concerns in the US, outsourcing issues will persist.
India will continue to preserve its strategic autonomy in foreign
policy, with the US complaisant but suspicious about its “nonaligned”
logic.

Obama or Romney- for us in meaningful political terms the choice would not be of much import.